R. Lorraine Wojahn

Following the retirement of George Sheridan, Wojahn was approached to run for election to the Washington House of Representatives for the 27th district in 1968. She was supported in her candidacy by the local labour groups but not the State Labor Council. She ran the election by 307 votes but felt betrayed by her former employer and did not join the labor committee. Instead she was chair of the commerce committee and a member of the revenue and taxation committee, the appropriations committee and the judiciary committee, the first non-lawyer to serve in the latter role. She supported the state income tax which was proposed by Governor Daniel J. Evans, although it was rejected by the public.[1]

She was one of seven women serving in the House during her first term and a member of Evans's Women's Council.[1][2] In 1972, she sponsored legislation to ratify the national Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and sponsored a separate measure to pass a version for Washington state. The latter legislation, House Joint Resolution 61, was passed by ballot initiative in November 1972.[1]

Wojahn successfully ran for a seat in the Washington State Senate in 1976, taking office the following year. She was asked to run for mayor of Tacoma two years later, to replace Gordon Johnston who was term limited. She accepted reluctantly but ultimately lost to Mike Parker.[1] In the Senate, Wojahn sponsored a variety of successful legislation, including the Displaced Homemakers Act along co-sponsor Peggy Maxie, which assisted women who were displaced by the loss of a spouse or their spouse's income, and a bill lowering the voting age in the state to 18.[1][3] In 1984, the legislature declared it to be the Year of the Child in coordination with a UNICEF program and Wojahn took the lead on the various pieces of legislation, including daycare, housing construction, and paternity, custody and child support. She also served on the State Employees Insurance Board.[1]

She was appointed as the chair of the committee on human services and corrections in October 1985. The following year, she produced the first comprehensive policy to limit the spread of HIV and AIDS in the state. She also supported the legislation to separate the existing Department of Social and Health Services, dividing it into two departments with separate remits for social issues and medical care. The bill to create a new Department of Health passed the House and Senate and was signed into law by Governor Booth Gardner on May 31, 1989.[1]

Wojahn often worked on social issues. She sponsored an assault weapons ban, a domestic violence bill and a bill to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination, although none of this legislation was successful. She supported a state healthcare bill which passed the Senate in April 1993, which was intended to require businesses to provide health insurance to their employees by 1997, although the act was repealed in 1995.[1] In 1997, she submitted a recording of Washington Supreme Court justice Richard Sanders speaking in opposition of abortion at a political rally to the Commission on Judicial Conduct.[4]

She also focused on parks and recreation issues, working to redevelop downtown Tacoma. The city purchased Union Station Tacoma in 1984 and it was coverted into a federal courthouse. Wojahn had negotiated for the building to be used as a state museum of history but ultimately, she worked with fellow representative Dan Grimm to receive $34 million from bonds and with councilmember Tom Stegner to receive a donation of two and a half acres of land from the city. The Washington State History Museum opened on August 10, 1996.[1]